me, I suppose, we
must be content with making carbon so brilliant as it is in the flame of
a candle. Well; now you see that a candle-flame is vapor burning, and
the vapor, in burning, turns into water and carbonic acid gas. The
oxygen of both the carbonic acid gas and the water comes from the air,
and the hydrogen and carbon together are the vapor. They are distilled
out of the melted wax by the heat. But, you know, carbon alone can't be
distilled by any heat. It can be distilled, though, when it is joined
with hydrogen, as it is in the wax, and then the mixed hydrogen and
carbon rise in gas of the same kind as the gas in the streets, and that
also is distilled by heat from coal. So a candle is a little gas
manufactory in itself, that burns the gas as fast as it makes it."

"Haven't you pretty nearly come to your candle's end?" said Mr.
Wilkinson.

"Nearly. I only want to tell uncle, that the burning of a candle is
almost exactly like our breathing. Breathing is consuming oxygen, only
not so fast as burning. In breathing we throw out water in vapor and
carbonic acid from our lungs, and take oxygen in. Oxygen is as necessary
to support the life of the body, as it is to keep up the flame of a
candle."

"So," said Mr. Bagges, "man is a candle, eh? and Shakspeare knew that, I
suppose (as he did most things), when he wrote

"'Out, out, brief candle!'

"Well, well; we old ones are moulds, and you young squires are dips and
rushlights, eh? Any more to tell us about the candle?"

"I could tell you a great deal more about oxygen, and hydrogen, and
carbon, and water, and breathing, that Professor Faraday said, if I had
time; but you should go and hear him yourself, uncle."

"Eh? well! I think I will. Some of us seniors may learn something from a
juvenile lecture, at any rate, if given by a Faraday. And now, my boy, I
will tell you what," added Mr. Bagges, "I am very glad to find you so
fond of study and science: and you deserve to be encouraged: and so I'll
give you a what-d'ye-call-it? a Galvanic Battery on your next birth-day;
and so much for your teaching your old uncle the chemistry of a candle."

THE MYSTERIOUS COMPACT.

A FREE TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN.

IN TWO PARTS.--PART I.

In the latter years of the last century, two youths, Ferdinand von
Hallberg, and Edward von Wensleben were receiving their education in the
military academy of Marienvheim. Among their schoolfellows they were
called Oreste